


In Winter Light

by Nevanna



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Background Relationships, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mentor/Protégé, Other, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 05:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15879282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: Geoffrey and Alex spend a free afternoon together.





	In Winter Light

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set around the beginning of _In The Hand of the Goddess_ , and takes place within the same continuity as [The Cold Is Closing In](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15802419), though the two stories can be read independently.

Alex lifts the curtain for a look outside. “The pond should be frozen over soon,” he says. “Have you ever skated before?”

“I grew up in a desert,” Geoffrey reminds him, frowning over another densely written paragraph in his etiquette book. “I never even saw snow until I was old enough to ride to Corus with my father.”

“How did you like it?”

“I asked if I could take some of it home. Our manservant claims that Father actually smiled at that, but I still find such a thing hard to believe.” Geoffrey doesn’t really expect a response to his joke: his father may be reluctant to smile, but his knight-master is even more so. 

“Would you like to learn?”

“If you have the time to teach me, sir.” Geoffrey fears that the ice will have melted before the two of them share any free time, but he doesn’t say so aloud.

\--

Thankfully, it doesn’t take them quite so long to find an afternoon to themselves. The ice is firm beneath Geoffrey’s skates as he wobbles onto the pond. “This isn’t exactly the sort of blade I thought you’d be teaching me to use,” he remarks.

“Think of this as an exercise in balance and coordination,” Alex suggests, and extends his arm. “You can hold on until you’re ready.”

Alex is on the smaller and leaner side – though almost anybody would look small next to some of his burlier friends – but he works tirelessly in the training courts, and the muscles in his arm are solid and unyielding beneath his jacket. “Push back with one foot,” he’s saying, and Geoffrey forces himself to pay attention to the words, “and let the motion carry you forward. Do it over again when you start to slow down.”

When Geoffrey finally lets go, he flails, steadies himself, and waits until he’s fallen into the rhythm of push and glide before he speaks again. “Perhaps this should have been part of the official training program from the beginning,” he says. “Though I can’t quite imagine someone like Duke Roger showing his squire how to skate.”

A chill breeze strikes them both in the face, toying with Alex’s dark waves of hair. “No,” he agrees, his eyes fixed on the wisps of cloud that drift across the sky, “but he’s taught me plenty of other things.” He shakes his head. “Perhaps you can teach your own squire, when the time comes.”

\--

They practice until Alex challenges Geoffrey to skate a circle around the pond. “Mind the reeds over there,” he advises. “The ice is most likely thinner.”

Geoffrey frowns. “What if I fall through?” He shudders at the thought of the dark, freezing water pulling him down and down, but it’s the equally treacherous image of Alex helping him to remove his wet clothes that nearly undoes his balance all over again.

“Then I’d pull you out, you dolt. I’m oath-bound to rescue those in need, aren’t I?”

“And what about later, after I’ve taken the same oaths?” Geoffrey teases.

“What do _you_ think?”

“We’ll just have to rescue each other,” Geoffrey says, after a moment.

Alex nods. “That’s how it ought to be, isn’t it?”

As Geoffrey takes off across the ice, he makes a private vow of his own: that whenever he’s weighed down by incomprehensible lessons or seemingly endless chores, whenever he’s worried about the Ordeal of Knighthood, or later on (if there _is_ a “later on”), when he’s frightened or miserable during a battle, he’ll try to find happiness in the memory of this afternoon.

When he completes the circle, the first thing that he sees is Alex’s smile.


End file.
